This book asks the question of how Jacob Burckhardt, a cultural historian almost forgotten in our context, could have inspired a much more famous and well-known philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. The first section examines the terminological and biographical similarities and tries to prove Burckhardt’s cardinal influence in Nietzsche’s argument with Richard Wagner. The second section focuses on the method of Burckhardt’s cultural history, which in many respects heralded Nietzsche’s genealogy, establishing starting points for his concept of ethics. Favoring self-creation over obedience is in Burckhardt’s opinion the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. The main thesis of the book is: from the moment Nietzsche saw this possibility of the transformation of the Renaissance form of virtue (without moralism) and the subsequent concept of plastic force, he made Burckhardt his model reader, the recipient of his writings as a model for all future readers. Jacob Burckhardt thus acquired an epochal significance as he embodies the image of humanity which Nietzsche expected of those who would pick up his books.